Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Putting on the Brakes

A First Look at ''Second Chances''
By: Chuck Colson

Divorce is epidemic in the culture and, I’m sad to say, in the Church. Can that change?

In her 1968 country tear-jerker about her divorce, Tammy Wynette sang about her son and about-to-be ex-husband, “I love you both and this will be pure H. E. double L. for me. Oh, I wish that we could stop this D.I.V.O.R.C.E.”

New research shows that Tammy is not alone.

Working with the Institute for American Values, principal investigators Professor William Doherty of the University of Minnesota and retired Georgia Supreme Court Justice Leah Ward Sears discovered that “About forty percent of couples already deeply into the divorce process report that one or both spouses are interested in the possibility of reconciliation.”

According to their study, “Second Chances: A Proposal to Reduce Unnecessary Divorce,” this means that a significant number of divorces are preventable and thus unnecessary.

Most people believe that divorce is the result of long-term marital strife, but this turns out to be false. As Dr. Doherty and Justice Sears wrote in the Washington Post, “[O]nly a minority of divorcing couples experience high conflict and abuse during their marriages. Most divorces occur with couples who have drifted apart and handle everyday disagreements poorly.”

And they add, “It is these ‘average’ divorces that research shows are the most harmful to children.” And because the state has a compelling interest in the wellbeing of children, the state also has a compelling interest in preventing these unnecessary divorces.

That’s why Doherty and Sears have gone beyond research to develop a proposal for changing state laws.

First, they recommend a one-year waiting period before a divorce is granted. The decision to divorce is often made when emotions are hot. Once the papers are filed, couples find themselves on what Justice Sears calls “the divorce superhighway.”

As a result, couples find they don’t have the time, the tools, or the space to reconsider. A slower road, especially for couples with children, will allow couples to consider the consequences of divorce against other options.

Second, they recommend a mandatory early warning letter from the spouse intent on filing for divorce. It’s a way of putting the other spouse on notice that, “we have a problem” before the legal wheels begin turning. And it would trigger mandatory pre-filing education for parents of minor children.

Doherty and Sears go on to recommend that couples contemplating divorce have access to marriage reconciliation services whether they use them or not. While many couples with troubled marriages seek counseling, most therapists aren’t adequately trained in couples counseling and many feel they should be neutral on the question of divorce. Second Chances recommends proper training and a pro-marriage bias for counselors.

Second Chances is “a modest proposal” to reduce divorce, and I am all for it. My question for Christians and for churches is, why wait for a new law? Do we really believe that marriage was instituted by God, that He intended it for human flourishing, and that marriage and the family unit are the cornerstones of civilization?

Then for heaven’s sake, let’s use our creativity and gifts to do everything we can to help struggling married couples stay together.

3 comments:

My husband and I almost divorced 5 years ago and then we decided to give it one more try by attending a marriage retreat weekend. We decided on "Retrouvaille." We came back committted to each other and we have not looked back and today we volunteer by giving post talks in this ministry.

It is sad to see so many couples give up the fight but there are so many out there that are giving it all they have to stay married.

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We are two goofie people that got married back in June of 2001 then 6 years later we made another goofie precious little girl named Sofia then we waited a year and decided to procreate another baby girl. We also have two goofie dogs, Lenny and Billy. We live in this goofie house close to a walking trail and we are very happy in our little goofie world.

The Real Deal

Make love a priority. Corinthians1 13

1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8Love never fails.

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Excerpt from Purpose Driven Life

Life is all about love.Because God is love, the most important lesson he wants you to learn on earth is how to love. It is in loving that we are most like him, so love is the foundation of every command he has given us "The whole Law can be summed up in this one command: Love others as you Love yourself." Learning to love unselfishly is not an easy task. It runs counter to our self-centered nature. That's why we're give an a lifetime to learn it....

... Love cannot be learned in isolation. You have to be around people- irritating, imperfect, frustrating people...

..Let love be your greatest aim...

Excerpt #3 from PDL

Love Is an Action12/18/2008Dear children, let us stop just saying we love each other; let us really show it by our actions. 1 John 3:18 (NLT)*** *** *** ***Love is something you do. Do you really love someone? Let’s see how you act toward that person. You show love by what you do, not just by what you feel.Love is more than attraction and more than arousal. It’s also more than sentimentality, like so many of today’s songs suggest. By this standard, is love dead when the emotion is gone? No, not at all. Because love is an action; love is a behavior.Over and over again, in the Bible, God commands us to love each other. And you can’t command an emotion. If I told you “Be sad!” right now, you couldn’t be sad on cue. Just like an actor, you can fake it, but you’re not wired for your emotions to change on command. Have you ever told a little kid, “Be happy!” I’m trying, daddy!If love were just an emotion, then God couldn’t command it. But love is something you do. It can produce emotion, but love is an action.The Bible says, “Let us stop just saying we love each other; let us really show it by our actions” (1 John 3:18 NLT). We can talk a good act: “I love people.” But do we really love them? Do you really love them? Our love is revealed in how we act toward them.

Excerpt #2 from PDL

Love Is a Choice2008/11/25… That you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Deuteronomy 30:20 (NIV)*** *** *** ***Love is a choice and a commitment. You choose to love or you choose not to love.Today we’ve bought into this myth that love is uncontrollable, that it’s something that just happens to us; it’s not something we control. In fact, even the language we use implies the uncontrollability of love. We say, “I fell in love,” as if love is some kind of a ditch. It’s like I’m walking along one day and bam! – I fell in love. I couldn’t help myself.But I have to tell you the truth – that’s not love. Love doesn’t just happen to you. Love is a choice and it represents a commitment.There’s no doubt about it, attraction is uncontrollable and arousal is uncontrollable. But attraction and arousal are not love. They can lead to love, but they are not love. Love is a choice.You must choose to love God; he won’t force you to love him (Deuteronomy 30:20). You can thumb your nose at God and go a totally different way. You can destroy your life if you choose to do that. God still won’t force you to love him. Because he knows love can’t be forced.And this same principle is true about your relationships: you can choose to love others, but God won’t force you to love anyone.